Mod-01 Lec-30 Nuclear Reactions

We discussed nuclear decays, alpha decay, beta decay and gamma decay. In these alpha and beta decays the nucleus changes, the parent nucleus is different than daughter nucleus. In alpha decay just two neutrons and two protons form an alpha particle and come out of the parent nucleus. In beta decay a proton is converted into neutron or a neutron is converted

into proton, that is how the nucleus changes. In gamma decay nothing changes the nucleus remains the same is only d excites from an upper energy level to lower energy level, that we briefly talked about. Now, the next topic or the next chapter is on what we call nuclear reactions. Reactions you are familiar from your chemistry terminology, in chemistry there are lots of reactions where

you have some constituent molecules and then they interact and there are re distribution of atoms from one compound to other compound and so on. So, you get some product compounds, so some a plus b become c plus d or c plus d plus e and so on. So, the chemical changes take place the molecules change, but the elements remain the same it is only a redistribution

of those ions or atoms and rearrangement that gives new compounds. Similarly here nuclear reactions, in nuclear reactions we generally have redistribution of free or rearrangement of nucleons. So, protons and neutrons are same just like chemical reaction you can have generally you have two constituents to start with there is one nucleus and another nucleus is sent towards it, so that it can interact using nuclear interactions

and from that some kind of a final product is formed maybe two particles or three particles and so on. Typically your nuclear reaction will be something like a particle a and another particle capital A and going to some b plus capital B typically you can have more than two particles on this side, this side generally you have two particles.